Earlier this month, I spent a deeply engaging week with some of the brightest people in our field for Pierce Salguero’s Annual Traditional Thai Medicine Workshop for teachers and advanced practitioners.Before arriving on the first day, I did two things which turned out to be prophetic.First, I popped a book on tape into my CD player. A client gave it to me many weeks ago, sure that I would find it interesting. Indeed. With no idea what to expect, I listened. Attentively. On the quiet ride from New York to Pennsylvania.It was an MD-PHD’s memoir about treating the sick-poor in a San Francisco almshouse and her own research on the medieval medicine of Hildegard of Bingen.I listened with fascination to this modern medical doctor’s stories of healing and to

her deep understanding of Hildegard’s medieval medical practice. Hildegard’s pre-modern medicine had as its basis four element theory, examination of the bodily humors, and herbal treatments. (Sound familiar?)

Hildegard tended to her patients as one tends to a garden. She employed a nurturing medicine with regimes prescribed to allow healing, slow healing, to work its magic.

Having arrived at my hotel, I did the second thing which turned out to be prophet. I opened up my journal and asked myself some questions. Here they are;

Is what I do still Thai massage?Does that even matter?How can I use Thai medical theory with my clients?What is the role of spirit in my work?How can I invoke spirit more fully in work with clients?

And so, with Hildegard on my mind and these questions in my journal, I headed to our daily lectures on sen and lom, four element diagnosis, Buddhism and spirit healing and the historical mash-up of cultural influences that is Thai medicine.

Did I get answers? I did.

Where they what I expected? No, not always.

But an amazing thing happened. I came away from my five days immersed in the history of Thai medicine feeling utterly free. Free to do my work. Free to call it Thai massage. Free to allow the lessons learned on the mat with clients to direct my work. Free.

The workshop reminded me why I entered the field of Thai massage in the first place. (Being me, I made a list.)

I wanted physical work to get me out of my head and keep me strong.

I wanted to develop my intuition.

I was attracted to the East like so many of us who struggle with our Western lifestyle.

Having been an historian, I loved the idea of working in a field with a long history of practice.

As a Buddhist, I wanted work that would be a daily expression of my spiritual practice.

Obviously, Thai massage is a very good fit.

Now in my fourteenth year as a Thai massage therapist / historian / Buddhist / intuitive, I begin to see my choices in a larger context.

Though remarkably little is written in English about Thai medicine, our colleagues and friends are publishing and teaching and helping those of us deeply enmeshed in practice to contextualize our work.

This is not easy. It is not always comfortable. And it is absolutely vital.

One of the things that I found freeing about this workshop is that it made clear how pointless it is to affirm, assert, insist that the work I do, or you do, or anyone else does IS Thai Massage (capital “T” - capital “M”).

Thai massage is a pastiche of theory, technique and practice. It is a living tradition. If you practice it, you are part of that living tradition.

More importantly, if your clients benefit from your work, you have done your job.

I don’t care with whom you studied. How many months or years you spent in Thailand. How many now-deceased “original masters” you learned from.

I don’t care if you got here through the yoga door, or the massage door or some other door entirely.

What matters to me is intention and clarity. Intellectual curiosity. Diligence and conscientious application of the lessons learned.

And what matters most is outcomes with clients.

It is a big soup, our field of endeavor. It’s like a good Thai curry, as Pierce explained. In that bowl are ingredients native to China and India, now found in Thai farmers’ fields and transformed by the light hand of a Thai cook into a gorgeous Thai dish.

Like plants and the dishes we make of them, the practice of medicine has been shared for as long as humans have moved about on the earth, encountered something useful and adopted or adapted it.

Just like Hildegard, herself practicing an old form of Greco-Roman medicine, and like me, a traveller to Thailand, who brought something really useful home with me.

So let me answer for myself the questions I had going in to the Thai medicine workshop.

Is what I do still Thai massage? Yes.

Does that even matter? Nope.

How can I use Thai medical theory with my clients? I don’t have to in order to be effective for my clients.

What is the role of spirit in my work? It is the most important and most fundamental aspect of what I do.

How can I invoke spirit more fully in work with clients? Just keep doing the work.

Satu... Amen... Thank you....
Doesn't matter, as long as your head, your mind, and your gut are all in agreement that what you are doing feel right and not harming anyone.

Sometimes I post similar questions. I do not know why I do what I do. I feel I hardly know TTM&M and there's not enough time to learn and practice all in a lifetime. The take away from your article is "Adopt and Adapt" to your own practice as long as you are helping people heal (not hurting with improper training and misunderstanding).

Thank you those who take part, regardless how big or small, to preserve this ancient art.

Great observations. Especially the five questions with their answers. I can totally relate to that. I could never warm up to the idea of doing all kinds of defining, labeling, segmenting, insisting on specific lineage, or insisting that certain elements in Thai Massage need to be included or excluded. So these conclusions are exactly mine as well.

Pamela Herrick

6/24/2015 12:36:55 am

Shama,

Thanks for getting in on this conversation! I love the notion that we are all a part of a living tradition,